


Shift in Balance

by youcouldmakealife



Series: Follow the North Star [34]
Category: Original Work
Genre: M/M, Multi
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-09-22
Updated: 2017-09-22
Packaged: 2019-01-04 05:47:27
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,306
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12162729
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/youcouldmakealife/pseuds/youcouldmakealife
Summary: Kissing doesn’t solve anything.





	Shift in Balance

When Roman gets out of here, he’s going to kill Liam Fitzgerald. 

In the meantime, all he can do is try to get through this, which is easier said than done. It was one thing when it was just him and Connie. They actually managed to talk things through, at least a little, before Roman’s impulses beat out his better sense and words were exchanged, for, well. 

Kissing doesn’t solve anything. If anything, it made things worse, especially now that Harry’s been thrown in with them — going to _kill_ Liam — and obviously upset. It’s probably as much by what he walked in on as the situation, but he seems to mostly be tackling the latter right now, unable to keep still, shifting constantly in Roman’s peripheral vision as Roman stares determinedly out the window at the parking lot glazed with snow beneath them.

Harry keeps going to the door, alternately tugging at the handle and scrabbling at the edge of the frame, never getting anywhere with it. It’s getting to Roman, being reminded again and again that they’re trapped, the pointlessness of Harry’s constant trips, and after half a dozen times he can’t help but snap out a “Give it up” that Harry thankfully listens to. 

He’s still then too, quiet. It lasts for all of a minute before he breaks the silence, this jerky edge to his voice, saying that this has to be a crime. It is, but it’s still pretty fucking rich for him to say it, considering trespassing’s one too, and that didn’t stop him.

“Okay, yes, maybe,” Harry admits when Roman says as much. “But this is a whole ‘nother level of crime. And going to stakeout Fitzy’s place was Victor’s idea.”

Like Roman said, he never doubted it for a second when they blamed Victor the first time, and today just underlines why. Roman doesn’t know whose idea this was — it seems far more Fitzy’s blunt style than Victor’s spidery hands, thus the killing — but without a doubt, Victor was the one coordinating it with disturbing efficiency. 

“Yeah, I’m planning on an intervention for Victor when we get out of here,” Roman says.

“Can I be the one whose job is to yell at him until he cracks?” Harry asks hopefully. He’d be good at that. Roman can’t help smiling at the thought, and Harry grins back for a second before he looks away, smile disappearing all at once.

“How long they planning on keeping this up?” Harry asks, looking at the wall instead of Roman or Connie.

“Until tomorrow morning, according to Fitzgerald,” Roman says.

“Are you fucking kidding me?” Harry says. “What, is this a starvation campaign too?” 

“I hardly think we’re going to star—” Roman starts, but Harry’s already sprung up, half running to the door.

“I’m hungry, jackass,” Harry says, pounding on it.

The response is too muffled for Roman to get, other than ‘sandwiches’ and ‘fridge’ and ‘drawers’.

Harry obviously hears more, and more importantly identifies the voice, saying “You too, Val?”, sounding almost hurt.

Oh good. Wonderful to know Liam’s putting his Rookie Detectives to good use aiding and abetting crimes. Well, the Rookie Detectives who aren’t stuck in this room with Roman at least. Roman can’t believe Fitzy turned his troops against him.

The mini-fridge indeed contains a neat row of sandwiches, clearly from a deli, labeled and wrapped in plastic. The rest of it’s crammed full with beverages, some more adult than others. “Well, got to give Victor credit where it’s due,” he says. “He really thought this through.”

“That isn’t terrifying to you?” Harry asks.

“Didn’t say it wasn’t,” Roman says. “Impressive, though. You like salami?”

“Sure,” Harry says, unusually agreeable. 

“Connie, ham okay?” Roman asks. “Or turkey. Whichever you’d prefer. There’s two of everything, if you want salami.”

“Anything’s fine,” Connie says, which Roman kind of expected.

“He likes turkey,” Harry says, the short burst of agreeable replaced with smugness that drives Roman nuts, like he’s tallying points in his head, just gave himself another for knowing what kind of cold cuts Connie likes.

“Anything’s fine, really,” Connie repeats, the complete inverse of Harry. Connie could absolutely hate ham for all Roman knows. He’d rather pick at it than be forced to admit which he wants the most or potentially take the one that Roman or Harry prefers. For a moment Roman feels desperately sad. Worried, too, but that’s far from extraordinary, when it comes to how he feels about Connie.

“Got any water in there?” Harry asks, after Roman gives Connie a turkey sandwich.

“Nah, but there’s Gatorade and OJ,” Roman says. “And uh. A couple bottles of vodka.”

“Vodka,” Harry repeats, and comes over to look when Roman nods. Roman shifts out of his way. “The fuck’s he doing providing alcohol to a minor?”

Roman thinks it was meant to make Connie bristle, but he doesn’t, and they end up falling back into that awkward silence as they eat. It’s not as bad when you’ve got something else to focus on, and Roman chews slowly, trying to make the distraction last. Still, there’s only so long you can take eating a sandwich, and eventually they’re all finished their food and back where they started, the silence weighing on them until Harry, once again, breaks it.

“So,” Harry says. “You guys back together, or what?” Roman thinks he’s trying for curiosity, but there’s an edge to the question Roman doesn’t like. He can’t blame him for it, but it’s not comfortable.

“No,” Roman says. He tries not to look at Connie, but he gets a flash of a hurt look in the corner of his eye regardless. Fuck, he should just start looking out the window again.

“Why not?” Harry presses.

“Fuck’s sake, Chalmers,” Roman says.

“Seriously,” Harry says. “I mean, what, it’s totally fine to fuck —” He stops, then, maybe remembering what Roman had told him, then barrels forward. “I’m pretty damn sure I walked in on you making out. So what, he’s good enough for that but not good enough—”

“Go fuck yourself,” Roman snaps. He fucking knows better, and he should fucking know better than to say this shit in front of Connie.

“I’m not the one fucking toying—” Harry snaps back, because apparently he _doesn’t_ fucking know better and either didn’t listen to a goddamn thing Roman told him that night or just didn’t believe him.

“Stop it,” Connie says.

Harry ignores him, going on. “I’m just trying to understand, Novák. It might not be me you’re jerking around, but it’s kind of relevant to my life when my fucking boyfriend—” 

Or maybe it’s like Harry heard what Roman said and then just decided to accuse him of the fucking _opposite_. “I’m not jerking him—”

“Can we please stop talking?” Connie interrupts loudly, voice breaking over the final word, and Harry shuts up all at once.

“Sure,” Harry says, muted now. “Sure, babe.”

He’s as good as his word, at least temporarily. They go back to the awkward silence, which is, if possible, even more awkward now, but Harry breaks it sooner rather than later. Roman is shocked. Shocked.

“Fuck it, pass the vodka,” Harry says. 

“That a good idea?” Roman asks.

“Nope,” Harry says. “But I’m bored.” 

Harry gets up then, grabbing one of the bottles of vodka and a bottle of orange juice from the fridge before walking back to the beds and tipping the bottle at Connie in invitation. Roman fully expects Connie to decline, and he thinks Harry did too, because he looks startled when Connie says, “I’ll get cups,” and heads to the bathroom.

This is such a bad idea. Roman genuinely cannot think of a worse one.

“You got a better idea?” Harry asks, like he’s reading Roman’s mind. Or, more likely, like he heard the sigh Roman didn’t bother to hide.

“Other than _not_ day drinking?” Roman says.

“What else are we supposed to do?” Harry asks. And that’s the issue, isn’t it. No real distractions whatsoever, every time they attempt to talk they get in an argument, and playing the license plate game is a lot more fun in a car than when you’re squinting down at a parking lot, too far to get anything other than blurry color of the plates. You run out of cars pretty quick too.

Roman shrugs. Not day drinking was his plan, and still is, but he’s not surprised it isn’t exactly a tempting one. Roman would drink too, if he didn’t anticipate a thousand ways that could blow up in their faces. It still probably will, even if he doesn’t drink himself. Drunk Chalmers will be interesting.

May you live in interesting times, Roman remembers. A curse you lay upon your enemies.

Connie offers him one of the cups he found in the bathroom, but doesn’t push when Roman shakes his head, and Harry pours himself and Connie more than generous measures of the vodka, splashing orange juice in, then sitting down on the other bed. Connie sips, but Harry looks like he’s going all in, throat bobbing as he takes a generous swallow. He makes a face at the taste, after, miniscule, like he’s trying to hide the grimace, and Roman hates that he finds that a little endearing.

“It’s fucking awkward,” Harry says to him after a few gulps, “You sitting here and judging us while we drink. Doesn’t that get boring?”

“Someone here has to keep their head on straight,” Roman says.

“Why?” Harry asks.

“Because—” Roman starts, then sighs when Connie shifts down the bed, holding the bottle out to him. “Et tu, Evan?”

“It’s boring,” Connie says, repeating Harry, rather than his usual answer, “When other people are drinking and you aren’t.”

May you live in interesting times is getting underlined in Roman’s head right now.

“Boring is the last thing I’m worried about,” Roman says, but with the other two drinking, whatever’s going to happen is probably already on its way, and Connie’s right — it’s fucking boring watching other people steadily getting drunk while you’re still sober. Boring, and awkward, and this is probably all going to shit anyway. Booze can’t make it that much worse.

Roman is well aware he’s making excuses right now, but that doesn’t stop him from taking the bottle from Connie’s loose grip, doesn’t stop him from taking a generous swig. It burns a little, going down, which is fitting.

Harry switches to Connie’s bed after a minute to take the bottle from Roman, and they end up passing it around, the two of them topping themselves up, Roman taking another swig, which burns less and, he knows from experience, eventually won’t burn at all. Well, if he reaches that point, at least, which is a very, very bad idea.

Harry and Connie keep shifting closer to one another slowly, like they don’t even realize they’re doing it. It’s as if they’re magnetized to one another, and it’s hard not to be jealous of that, worse because he doesn’t even know who he’s jealous of right now. Both, he supposes, as much for the apparent ease of it as anything else. Fuck knows nothing between him and either of them is easy right now.

Connie scoots a few inches from Harry when he sees Roman looking. He looks ashamed, which he shouldn’t be, not for that, and certainly not for Roman’s sake. They aren’t even — he shouldn’t be ashamed.

“Connie, you can sit with your boyfriend, fuck,” Roman says.

“Which one?” Harry asks snidely. God, he can be such a fucking asshole.

“We’re not—” Roman says, then, glancing over at Connie, who’s gone very still, like if he doesn’t move he can’t be noticed, “Connie already said he didn’t want to talk about this.”

“With me there, yeah,” Harry says. “But honestly, it seems like something you two need to figure out, so. Want me to head to the bathroom and plug my ears or something? I mean, as long as you don’t start making out again, I guess I could--”

“It wasn’t about you being there,” Connie interrupts. “I mean, it’s about you as much as me and Roman.”

Roman goes cold all over. He thought — Connie’s not the type to —

“That’s not what I meant,” Connie says quickly. “I wouldn’t—”

Roman lets himself exhale. Of course he wouldn’t. Of anyone, Connie’s the least likely to say something about how someone else feels. He has a hard enough time talking about his own feelings.

“You’ve completely lost me,” Harry says, sounding annoyed, then when neither of them answer him, “Gotta piss.”

“You don’t have to—” Connie says.

“I actually do,” Harry says, getting up. He’s stomping a little, Roman thinks, though the carpet sucks up the impact of it.

“I really didn’t mean it like that,” Connie says, when the door clicks shut behind Harry. “I just meant that—”

“I know,” Roman says. “Sorry, I shouldn’t have assumed.”

“I wouldn’t tell,” Connie says, with an edge of hurt.

“I know,” Roman repeats. “Harry just gets me on edge, I guess.”

Connie, unlike literally everyone else Roman knows, doesn’t smirk, or raise his eyebrows, or turn that innuendo back on him, but Roman feels embarrassed anyway, and when Harry comes out of the bathroom, hair damp, one curl dripping over his forehead, Roman excuses himself quickly. Washing his hands, he can’t avoid seeing himself in the bathroom mirror, flushed and unsettled. He should stop drinking. They all should, should never have started, not with how volatile this all is. Soak something in alcohol and a spark becomes a fire faster than you can blink.

Connie slips into the bathroom as soon as Roman leaves it, a revolving door of escaping the situation, and Roman pours some vodka into a cup just so he doesn’t spend that stretch trying to ignore Harry. He’s not sure he’ll succeed right now, and without Connie to intercede, it’s better they don’t interact. 

Harry’s looking at him when he turns around, expression something Roman’s trying not to read into, before his gaze breaks away, and he says, sounding flustered, “Not like there’s anything else to look at.” He goes red then, like maybe he knows how that sounds. “I was trying to figure out your tattoo.”

Roman doesn’t want to tell him, doesn’t want — it’s vulnerability scrawled across his skin in Tomáš’ lazy handwriting, but he chose to wear it, and Harry can be a dick, but not that kind, Roman doesn’t think. “My brother’s name,” Roman says.

“Your brother’s?” Harry asks incredulously. Roman remembers Harry’s brother, typical Western Conference bully kind of player, how they almost came to blows when the Kings last came to town. Not that Roman and Tomáš never fought — Tomáš could be a bully too, the way, Roman’s gathered, isn’t so uncommon with older brothers — but with distance there’s a bit of charm to those memories, táta separating them, holding them apart, one in each arm, easy. Roman always thought his father was a giant, and he was, Roman supposes, though Roman’s bigger than he was even at his peak.

“He died when I was fifteen,” Roman says.

“Shit,” Harry says immediately. “Fuck. I’m sorry.”

“Was a long time ago,” Roman says, which is true, if empty.

“What’re you talking about?” Connie asks as he comes back into the room, sounding anxious, and Roman’s not surprised, because it looks like another fight in the making. Would be, if Harry had said anything but what he did. The ‘oh’ that comes out of his mouth is soft and sad when Roman tells him, and fuck, Roman can’t — Roman doesn’t know how Connie manages, going around leaving himself wide open like that, always showing his throat.

“Sorry,” Harry says again, looking a little miserable.

“Nothing to be sorry about,” Roman says. Harry wasn’t even bad about it. Roman’s had people immediately ask what happened, if it was drugs, suicide, like satisfying their curiosity was more important than tact. People who immediately told him about their own dead family members, ticking them off, like it was a contest. Do two aunts and a grandfather equal one brother, dead before he could reach adulthood? Roman doesn’t know. Roman doesn’t think it’s quantifiable. 

“Truth or dare,” Harry suddenly says, in what Roman imagines is a desperate plan to change the subject to something a little less loaded.

Roman can’t help a snort, and Connie’s “No” is unusually firm.

“You got a better idea, you tell me,” Harry says, then dramatically lies back, and Connie gently tucks back that rogue curl Roman noticed. Must’ve been automatic, because he snatches his hand away after a moment, glances over at Roman like he just got caught doing something he shouldn’t.

Roman’s suddenly very, very tired.

“Because drinking in awkward silence sucks,” Harry says, breaking through another one of those awkward silences.

“I dunno,” Roman says. “Seems to work better for us than talking.”

“True enough,” Harry says, and Roman thinks they’ll go back to it before Connie says, “Truth.”

Harry looks up at him, quiet now, considering look on his face. Roman can imagine the question he’s rolling around his head.

“We may have all night, but that doesn’t mean you have to take it,” Roman says, after the silence starts to stretch, and Harry gives him the finger.

“If you had to choose, would you play for the Oilers or the Panthers for the rest of your career?” Harry asks finally.

“Don’t be cruel to the kid,” Roman says, terribly relieved. No good choices for Connie there, but hypotheticals are a mile away from what he was concerned Harry might ask.

“Edmonton,” Connie says. “Because at least I wouldn’t have to live in the States.”

“Hey,” Roman says mildly, as Harry, typically, springs to sitting with the level of his indignation. Connie starts to giggle after a moment. It’s genuine mirth, not anxious, and he looks very pleased with himself. His laughter’s always contagious, the way everything else about him is, his anxiety, his pleasure, everything in Roman stretching out toward it, making it his own. The way Harry looks at Connie, Roman isn’t the only one that feels that way.

Harry looks back at Roman, grin tugging at the edge of his mouth. Roman doesn’t know if that’s to share the amusement or gauge whether Roman’s amused himself, companionable or competitive, or if that matters at all. There’s something in it that makes Roman want to —

He shouldn’t. Shouldn’t want to, and sure as fuck shouldn’t listen to that feeling. It’s complicated enough. It’s too complicated already.

“Connie,” he says, but he doesn’t look away from Harry, and Harry’s not looking away either.

“Okay,” Connie says.

Roman doesn’t know if Connie knows what he’s agreeing to. Roman doesn’t even know what he’s asking.

He moves almost unthinkingly, the three steps to Connie’s bed unsteady. It isn’t the vodka, which he hasn’t had enough of to destabilize him, at least physically, more like a shift in his center of balance. When he sits down on the bed he lands heavy, the mattress sinking under his weight, Harry tipping into him a little as it does.

“Okay?” Roman says, still not sure what he’s asking, and now not even sure _who_ he’s asking.

Harry’s brow furrows a little, confusion or suspicion or — Roman doesn’t know. Roman can’t read him. 

There are freckles in his eyes too, speckled in the green. Roman’s never been close enough to see them, or if he has, never bothered to notice. On his flushed cheeks, and everywhere that isn’t covered by clothing, probably under them too, and in his eyes. Roman doesn’t know why that’s the thing that spurs him forward.

“Don’t punch me,” Roman says, the words coming out rough, and he’s halfway to closing the distance when Harry kisses him.


End file.
